


Outsider

by eerian_sadow



Series: hurt-comfort bingo [9]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Gen, Hurt comfort bingo 2015, Imprisonment, Post B.O.T, Solitary Confinement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 14:08:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5629264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eerian_sadow/pseuds/eerian_sadow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After selling his team for scrap, Swindle is punished.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Outsider

**Author's Note:**

  * For [naboru](https://archiveofourown.org/users/naboru/gifts).



> Written for the 2015 round of hurt/comfort bingo, filling my "imprisonment" square.
> 
>  
> 
> I have a headcanon that says Swindle wasn't actually part of Onslaught's elite team, he just happened to be making the wrong deal at the wrong time when Megatron came for them. As a result, he doesn't have much loyalty to the mechs he's stuck with now.

Megatron gave him the dubious mercy of not allowing Vortex to escort him to his cell. Once he got a look at the place, rusted and leaking seawater and growing some kind of organic slime on one wall, Swindle almost wished his teammate had been allowed to escort him.

Vortex would kill him, eventually. A mech could live a very, very long time with rust.

“You get two rations a week.” Thundercracker shoved him into the cell and slammed the door. “You get out when Megatron says you get out. Don't try any funny business with whoever brings your rations, or we might let Vortex in with you, no matter what might happen to Bruticus.”

“Don't I get a data pad at least?” the weapon dealer turned around and scowled through the door’s tiny window at the Seeker. 

“You're a smart mech. You can figure out a way to entertain yourself.” The blue mech smirked and turned away.

He watched until he was sure the Seeker was gone, then turned around and surveyed his cell. His initial revulsion didn't fade; the whole room was filthy, and most of it was growing assorted organic lifeforms. There wasn't even a proper recharge berth, just a single unmarked port in the wall to plug into.

It was, of course, the wall coated in the black slime.

Swindle hung his head, and let himself wallow in the regret of having gotten caught running his con.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Scavenger brought him his first ration after three days in the cell. he had glared at the Constructicon with his usual attitude when the purple and green mech set his cube down and slid it through a slot in the bottom of the door, but then Scavenger had stood and stared at him through the tiny window.

Just _staring_.

“What the frag do you want?” Swindle snapped.

“Why did you do it?” the Constructicon asked.

The Combaticon (and inwardly he laughed bitterly; he was no combat mech) blinked. The answer was so obvious even a brain dead Insecticon could understand. “What do you mean why?”

“Well, why?” He was pretty sure Scavenger was frowning at him. “Don’t you love your brothers?”

“My… what?” Swindle gave in to the urge to laugh. “They aren’t my brothers! We weren't’ even teammates until Starscream pulled us out of prison.”

“But… but you’re _gestalt_.”

“That doesn’t mean we’re brothers. Frag, we weren’t even given a choice.”

Scavenger stared at him for a few seconds longer. “I don’t know if that makes it worse, or better.”

The arms dealer was saved from having to reply by the other mech stepping away from the door.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

After Scavenger, no one spoke to him when they delivered his rations for forty five days. He had no one and nothing for company but the mold, the rust and the dripping water. For a while, he sang to just hear the sound of another voice. When that became boring, he started counting the drips out loud. After a million drips, from multiple sources he was discovering, he stopped doing that too; his vocalizer was beginning to crackle ominously and it wasn’t likely that Hook would venture down into the slime and rust to do repairs.

On the forty fifth day, though, Onslaught stopped in front of the door. “I hate you.”

Swindle shrugged as if the statement didn’t bother him, though that _desperately unwanted_ gestalt coding insisted that he should feel bad. “I wasn’t ever that big a fan of yours either. You just paid the best.”

“Hook says that if I kill you for what you did to my team, it may kill all of us.” The Combaticon leader’s voice was dark and hard. “You will do well to remember that I care more about their well being than I hate you.”

“Yeah, I’ll keep that in mind, Ons.”

“Brawl thinks you’ve learned your lesson down here, alone in the damp. Now I am not so sure.”

“Look, either you're here to let me out or leave me to rust.” Swindle thumped his head back against the wall, ignoring the way it squished into the slime. “Just get on with it.”

“As you wish.” Onslaught turned away from the door.

Swindle barely resisted the urge to call him back and beg for release.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

On day forty six, the lights went out. He was left in the dark, with only the constant dripping for company.

When he went a full twenty four hours without the light, he began to believe that Onslaught would really let Megatron leave him down here until he went mad.

On the morning of day forty eight, the lights came back on, and Swindle wept with relief.

The other Combaticons might still leave him here to go slowly crazy--Vortex in particular would love that--but at least he would do it with his vision intact.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

“Hey, Swin?”

The arms dealer looked up at the voice as he etched the hash mark for his ninetieth day in solitary into the floor. For a moment, he didn’t recognize the mech standing at his door--everyone had started to become a blur in his processor sometime after day fifty five--and he blinked in confusion. “Brawl?”

“Yeah, it’s me.” The door swung open and the huge warrior stepped into the cell with him. Swindle caught sight of a brown arm pushing it closed again, and wondered if the rest of the team was standing outside, too. “Here, I brought you energon.”

Swindle took the cube when the green mech held it out. “What are you doing?”

“Megatron says we can let you out, if we really think you’re sorry.”

The arms dealer sipped the energon carefully. It wouldn’t be poisoned, thanks to Hook’s warnings, but it was much richer than what his jailers had been bringing him for weeks. “I am more sorry than any of you can understand.”

“Probably just sorry you got caught.” There was no malice in Brawl’s tone as he sat down next to the tan mech. “But it’s okay, I get it. You aren’t one of us, not really. And you think I’m stupid and that I’m a drain on resources, and that’s maybe true. And you never really liked us, so you tried to get away as fast as you could when you had the chance. I get it. Blast Off gets it too, even if he’s being an aft about it.”

“Wait, are you saying you forgive me?” Swindle blinked, sure that his processor was playing tricks on him. “After I sold you all for scrap and lost your personality matrix?”

Brawl laughed. “Yeah, I guess I am. Those three probably won’t ever forgive you, but that’s them. I get it, so I guess I’m not really mad anymore.”

“You’re crazier than Vortex.”

“Probably your fault.”

They were both silent for a moment before Swindle put his head down on his knees and laughed. A second later, Brawl joined him.

“Come on, drink your energon and we’ll get out of here. Megatron wants us to train the Stunticons so they can actually shoot things.”

“Frag that. Come break me out of jail tomorrow.” Swindle drank his energon as instructed and let Brawl pull him to his feet when it was finished.


End file.
